More than 200 migrants were rescued on Wednesday by the Spanish coastguard as they attempted to make the crossing from Africa to Spain, rescue services said on Thursday.
The rescue comes at a time when Spain is preparing for the arrival on a Spanish warship of 15 migrants from an Italian port following a prolonged standoff between Italian authorities and a Spanish-registered private rescue boat.
Meanwhile, Carmen Calvo, the government’s deputy prime minister, told the Spanish parliament that EU countries with no maritime border must share the burden of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to the continent from North Africa.
She said the EU needs to agree on “a formula for safe arrivals at ports and co-responsibility of (EU) countries.”
Similar pleas have been made in recent years, but to little effect.
Calvo was answering questions about a political and humanitarian stalemate earlier this month when Italian authorities refused to allow more than 80 migrants to disembark from a rescue ship run by a Spanish aid group.
The migrants spent 19 days on board the Open Arms ship amid worsening conditions as EU countries argued over how to handle their plight. Spain, Portugal, Germany, France and Luxembourg will be sharing out the migrants under an EU deal to end the standoff.
The migrant issue has dogged EU politics for years, and has led to the rise of anti-immigrant political groups. Spain has borne the brunt of EU migrant arrivals in recent years.
The Spanish maritime rescue service said the migrants it saved were in three boats and picked up in the so-called Alboran Sea, an area east of the Strait of Gibraltar and one of the most common routes for crossing to Europe from North Africa.
